


Road Trip of Surprisingly Minimal Doom

by DesertScribe



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Gen, Post-Canon, Road Trips, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-24 08:13:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17700713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/pseuds/DesertScribe
Summary: A year after the end of the show, in what Mabel will write down in her scrapbook as their vacation from their vacation, the Pines family heads to Las Vegas.





	Road Trip of Surprisingly Minimal Doom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Healy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Healy/gifts).



Ford jolted awake in the passenger seat of the decrepit RV as the vehicle hit yet another pothole. A bleary, still somewhat sleep-fogged glance out the window revealed that they were travelling through the empty wasteland of the Nevada desert, just like they had been when he had finally drifted off to sleep, but at least now the sun was up. Ford turned to tell Stan that he was free to treat his own property however he saw fit but a prudent person might wait until they were closer to civilization before deliberately destroying the suspension of what was currently their only available mode of transportation, but instead of seeing his brother sitting in the driver's seat, he saw his great niece.

"Hi, Grunkle Ford," Mabel said, grinning and waving to him. "Did you have a nice nap?"

"It would have been better if it had not been necessary at all, but _somebody_ ," he said, raising his voice enough to make sure that Stan could hear it from whatever part of the RV he had wandered off to, and if that happened to wake Stan from a nap of his own, then so much the better, "got my name added to the No Fly list during my absence from this dimension, thereby eliminating the travel option which would have allowed us to get to Las Vegas in a fraction of the time."

"It was for a good cause, and you'll never be able to convince either me or Soos otherwise!" Stan shouted back from somewhere in the rear seating area. "Besides, can you honestly say you didn't get your own name added to any No Fly lists in any of the dimensions you visited without any help from me at all?"

"However, the nap was adequate for what it was," Ford continued to Mabel, ignoring Stan's interjection. Technically he could have honestly answered Stan's question with an affirmative, but only technically. Ford had gotten plenty of false identities added to No Fly lists, No Teleport lists, and on one memorable occasion a No Medium, Large, Extra Large, Or Extra Extra Large Semi-Autonomous Robo-Icthio-Mobile list. Stan would undoubtedly spot the lie by omission and call him on it just for the sake of argument to alleviate the tedium of terrestrial road travel, a tactic which had not changed since the road trips of their childhood. With that in mind, Ford figured it was better to just pretend he had not heard the question, just like Stan often pretended not to hear many of Ford's questions, such as "Did you just pick that man's pocket?" and "How did you manage to get a scar that looks like a Colombian pixie snake tried to gnaw out your kidney?" Not that Ford could entirely fault him. Some things were better left unsaid, or at least better left unsaid in front of impressionable young witnesses.

Instead, Ford focused on stretching his stiff limbs as best as he could without leaving his seat and rolling his neck to loosen up the slight knot which had developed in the muscles there while he had been sleeping. With that taken care of, he watched the passing scenery for a few moments. Then, he looked back at Mabel.

The timing of their trip had been such that the younger set of Pines twins had arrived in Gravity Falls late last night, practically going straight from the bus from Piedmont and into the back of Stan's RV, where they'd gone right to sleep, so this was the first chance Ford had to really see her as anything more than a stumbling pseudo-zombie or a snoring lump curled up under a blanket. She looked like she had gotten taller since last summer, but most of that extra height appeared to come from a disproportionately sized pair of legs, suggesting that she was only able to reach the brake and gas pedal thanks to some creative use of one of those size-changing crystals on herself instead of any kind of natural growth spurt.

Ford suspected he already knew what answer he was going to get, but he had to ask the question anyway. "Thirteen-year-olds aren't allowed to drive in this dimension, are they?"

"Nope," Mabel said, still grinning. She pulled into the left lane and passed a tractor-trailer, honking and waving to the other driver as she did so. The driver of the tractor-trailer honked and waved back and didn't seem to see anything wrong with the fact that he was waving to a child who, even with the help of a magical height enhancement, could barely see over the steering wheel.

"It's generally advisable to use turn signals, unless you're trying to confuse pursuers," Ford said as evenly as he could.

"I'd use them if I could, but they're broken," Mabel said as cheerily as she might have announced they were going to have chocolate chip pancakes for dinner.

"Of course they are," Ford sighed. He pinched the bridge of his nose and started to count backwards from one hundred. He had only gotten down to eighty-seven when he decided there was no point in delaying the inevitable. "Mabel, dear, would you please pull over for a moment?"

"Okay." She eased the RV to a gentle stop along the shoulder of the road then gave him a worried look. "You aren't going to barf, are you, Grunkle Ford?"

"What?" Ford blinked in surprise. "No, that outcome seems highly unlikely right now."

"Good," Mabel said, looking relieved, "because I have a bet going with Dipper. If you barf while I'm driving, I'll owe him ten bucks." She took a thoughtful pause and then added conspiratorially, "On the other hand, if you'd be willing to barf while _Dipper's_ driving, then _I'd_ be willing to split my profits with you fifty-fifty."

"Ah, an entrepreneur after my own heart," Stan announced as he walked up behind them with a can of Pitt Cola in each hand. He passed one of the cans to Ford and asked, "Is there a problem up here?"

"Stanley, why are you letting Mabel drive the RV?"

"Because I was tired, and you were tired, and you said you wanted to get to Vegas as fast as possible because for some weird reason you suddenly don't want to be legally married to a gold-tone mechanical statue that eats nickels anymore."

"And because Mabel called first dibs faster than I did," Dipper added, joining the group. "Is it my turn now?" he added hopefully.

"No, Dipper, it's not your turn, and it's not your turn anymore either, Mabel. Stan and I promised your parents that we'd be more mindful of your safety this summer."

Dipper and Mabel exchanged a calculating look which Ford recognized all too well from exchanging identical ones with Stan at regular intervals for the first seventeen years of his life, then they both turned their full attention on him with expressions of faux-innocence plastered across their faces.

"Is that exactly what you promised, Grunkle Ford?" Dipper wheedled. "Because if that was the exact wording, then you could keep your promise of being mindful without actually changing your behavior."

"Besides, Grunkle Ford," Mabel said, throwing her arm around her brother's shoulders, "if Dipper doesn't get his chance to drive, then we'll never get the chance to settle our bet. And you'll never get your chance to earn five dollars," she added in a loud stage whisper. "And if you aren't willing to do it for petty sibling rivalry, then do it for science!"

"Yeah, for science," Stan added. "Wait, how is this science?"

"It's science if you write down the results," Dipper said.

"No, it's science if you write down the results and then do it again to make sure it's repeatable," Ford corrected.

"Even better," Mabel hurriedly agreed before Ford had a chance to realize the trap he was walking into.

"Science, science, science!" the younger twins chanted.

Ford sent a beseeching look in Stan's direction.

Stan answered with a smirk and a shrug.

"Fine," Ford said after he had paused long enough to not seem like he was giving in too easily, "but if your parents find about this, we're claiming that the two of you stole the keys while Stan and I had pulled over at a rest area for a nap like responsible drivers do when feeling fatigued."

"Obviously," Mabel said.

"We'd be disappointed in you if you didn't," Dipper agreed. "Now does this mean it really is my turn to drive?"

"I guess so," Mabel said. She pulled the familiar looking flashlight with the crystal attached to its front, used it to return her legs to their normal size, and then passed it to her brother so that he could perform the reverse of the procedure on himself and slide into the seat which she had just vacated. "Remember our agreement," she hissed in Ford's ear and then went skipping away towards the rear of the RV.

"Sooo," Dipper said with forced casualness as he checked his mirrors and then pulled the RV back onto the road, "it sounded like Mabel offered to pay you five dollars if you barf while I'm driving. I can offer you a better split of the take if you wait until the next time she's at the wheel."

"I would need quite a bit more incentive than the total of your wager before I would consider it worth my while to regurgitate on demand for anyone, so I am going to refrain," Ford said sternly but gently. "I have my standards."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best," Dipper agreed after a moment of thought. "It wouldn't really matter which of us won the bet if the results end up being gross enough that we both lose."

"It still would have been funny," Stan shouted from the back of the RV.

Ford frowned and turned around to look back over his shoulder at his brother. "Considering this is your vehicle, I would have thought you would have been against me making either of the children a winner."

Stan gave an unconcerned shrug. "Eh," he said, "this carpet has seen a lot worse over the years."

"Trust me, Grunkle Ford," Dipper said, cutting off Ford before he could ask the obvious question, "even as a scientist, there are some things you don't want to know. Now, stop me if this is another one of those things, but what was that Grunkle Stan was saying about you being married to a statue?"

Ford slouched lower in his seat and took a sullen drink of his soda. "Stan apparently married one of his Mystery Shack attractions while he was using my name, and despite his insistence that, and I quote, 'What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, a greeting card wishing the statue and I a happy upcoming ten month anniversary. We are traveling to Las Vegas so I can have the marriage annulled."

"Actually, that card was a forgery," Stan said popping back up to the front again, throwing an arm around Ford's shoulders and clinking his soda can against Ford's. "Seriously, Ford, they don't make cards for ten month anniversaries. We're going to Vegas for QuackerCon, and I didn't want to ruin the surprise for the kids."

"Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod, Grunkle Stan, you're the best!" Mabel shouted.

"And how, Stanley, is getting scammed into attending a convention for that children's show you like any better from my point of view?"

"Oh, I don't know," Stan drawled, "maybe because they're supposed to be handing out some kind of QuackerCon exclusive Ducktective themed expansion pack for that nerd game you like? They're calling it something like Ducktective, Ducktective , and More Ducktective."

"Oh," Ford said. "You could have just said that to begin with."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Just then, the RV hit another bump, but there was something different about it this time.

Ford craned his neck to try to get a glimpse of the road behind them in one of the RV's mirrors, but they were all at the wrong angle for him. "Is it just me, or did that feel more like you ran over a pedestrian than a pothole."

"It was just a chupacabra," Dipper said. "Don't worry, those things are almost as common in the southwest as faeries are in Gravity Falls. I can show you my notes about them next time we pull over. Also, the fact that you can tell the difference between those two events by feel suggests you have zero moral high ground here, so don't even try to start lecturing me about it."

"Spoken like a true Pines! He's got you there, Sixer," Stan laughed.

"I have never run over any pedestrians with a wheeled motor vehicle," Ford said. He crossed his arms and glowered at Stan for emphasis.

Sensing a loophole, Stan did not let the matter drop like Ford had hoped. "So that means at some point you hit somebody with something that didn't have a motor or something that didn't have wheels."

"If you must know," Ford sighed, "it was a Mini Semi-Autonomous Robo-Icthio-Mobile."

And the Pines family road trip to Las Vegas continued uneventfully.

**The End**


End file.
